Rick's Philosophies

On the 28th day of November, synonymous with my brother's birthday on January 28th and also the explosion of the space shuttle challenger in 1986, I am thankful for my next older brother even though I don't see or him from him much and for the brave men and women who risk their lives in order to advance technology.

On the 29th day of November, synonymous with February 29th, I am thankful for the days being 24 hours long and not 23 hours and 56 minutes.  That was a challenge by God to see if man could figure out how to deal with creating a clock and a calender.  God even threw in seasons to vary our climate and confuse us even more with global warming and seasonal changes.  Trials and tribulations.

On the 30th day of November, the birthday of the Mother of my children, I am thankful we made such wonderful children who have grown into great adults who are caring, thoughtful, and would give anyone the shirt off their back to help out.

I remember talking about how someone didn't want to be around me any more and I could not understand why. The pain and the agony of not understanding just blew me away until one day a friend said to me, "It is their loss, because you are a wonderful fantastic person. Anyone who would blow you off and not want to be around you is really ignorant, so it is their loss." I replied with an acknowledgement that my friend was most likely right and also told my friend that I really appreciated that friend's candor and insight. So if someone you really like decides to ignore you and go their own way, let them, because it is not worth the pain and the agony one feels when this happens, especially if you really cared about the person or people who walk out of your life. Life is too short to worry about those who walk away. Spend your time cultivating those who stay.  Besides the people who decide to stay in your life and be a part of it are the most valuable people in your life because they care and they want to be around you.

The past three years have flown by but not without a lot of hard work in communications. Working as a Customer Support Representative takes a lot of consistent adjustments to keep in tune with the people you serve.  In a moments notice you have to bring yourself to the level of intelligence and communications style of the individual you are communicating with.  This takes a lot of practice and sometimes it is very hard to switch your communications style in order to maintain your effectivity.

When working with groups and/or teams of individuals it becomes even more difficult because you have to find some plateau wherein everyone is comfortable while slightly moving from one person's interest to another to keep a captive and motivated audience.  This means you have to find some idea of the interests of your audience.  You must have interaction in order to do this.  There are different ways of getting and maintaining interaction with your audience.  Once way I have kept interaction was to throw out pieces of candy or some other type of goodie to people in the audience who answer a question or volunteer information.

If you think about it, everything we do in life is through some type of interaction.  So the more interactive you are, the better you will succeed in your endeavers. If you are still sitting there and not being interactive, get with it!  Find something out about someone you are interested in.  You will be glad you did.

Recently I had the experience of having my gall bladder removed via laparscopy.  I have never experienced the amount of pain that was brought on by the multiple attacks when one of the gall stones blocked my entry/exit of bile from my gall bladder.  I went to my primary care doctor after the third pain attack because I knew something was wrong and required medical attention.  My primary care doctor sent me for a KAT scan which revealed I had a 3 cm stone in my gall bladder.  He sent me directly to the ER where I spent 5 hours going through testing, including ultrasound, to further clarify and identify what was going on with my body. After 5 hours of emergency room review, I was told that they could handle the situation on the spot, however they would have to slice me open to get the gall bladder out if they did it there.  The recommendation of the staff in the ER was to refer me to specialists who could remove the gall stone with less invasive procedures than the ER would perform on the spot while I was in their care.

Obviously, after careful consideration and consulation with my Wife, who is a Licensed Practical Nurse going to school to be a Registered Nurse, we made the decision to go with the specialist route which would be less invasive.

Well, we managed to get an appointment 7 days later with a specialist who indicated he could do an ERCP a couple of days after we met with him, and he also referred me to a surgeon who would help me with getting the gall stones removed from my body laparscopically.

I survived the ERCP on the 21st of April and then met with the surgeon on the 26th of April who indicated I needed to get this gall bladder out of me soon, so he scheduled me for surgery on the 30th of April.

My Wife went with me to the hospital for the surgery on the 30th of April.  It took the doctor 3 hours to do the laparscopic surgery, so he was really worn out when he went and spoke with my Wife.

He told her that he really had his work cut out for him because I was among the top 1% of the people who get highly infected.  He had to work really hard to make sure he got all of the infection out of me, because if he did not, and any of the infection spilled into my abdomen, it would have killed me.

I am very fortunate to still be alive based on what my surgeon told my Wife and I.

So my questions to all of you is, would it have made a difference to you if I had died?  Would I have been missed? Do I do anything that makes my existence worthwhile?

Sometimes it is through the support of others that makes us realize our net worth.

Without people communicating to us our value to them, we never know if we would have been missed, or if it would be a blessing to them if we pass on, and they wish they never had known us to begin with.

Where do you stand?  Would the world be a better place without me, or have I made an impact upon your life that you will forever remember?

Ever happen to you?  Just when you thought you had it all figured out, put your plan into action, and then ouch! What the heck happened? One thing you have to remember is there are as many different opinions as there are individuals.  While some of the opinons may be similar, most will vary slightly, and then there are always those that are completely opposite of each other.  Whenever you plan on putting a plan into action, try to find the one that fits what most of the people like. If you are in tune, you will have a pretty good idea what most of the people like.  Don't feel bad though if once in a while you are out of tune, and it flops, and you ask yourself, "What was I thinking?", because it will happen.  If you don't have this happen to you, then you are not taking the risks associated with success.  To be successful, you have to take risks.

How important is a Winner.  Ask a Loser.  After all you cannot have a winner unless there is a loser.  It is much the same as for every up there is a down, for every left there is a right, for every right there is a wrong, and for every good there is a bad, and so on.

If someone wins, someone loses.  If nobody plays you cannot have a winner nor can you have a loser.  Think about that the next time you head into your next day.

There are some of us who can see the "Shades of Gray", meaning that everything is not black and white, there are shades of gray.

So in sports it is taught that we have to learn to be good losers as well as we appreciate winning.  In life it is much the same way, we have to learn to be good at not doing so well in the face of those that do.

There is nothing wrong with not "winning" all of the time as long at you are comfortable with who you are, and the loss is not devastating to your well being.  As long as you are doing well, accept any loss as a stepping stone to your destination, and use it as a learning tool, to help you be a better person.

Two major icons have been called to heaven this past week who have made a major impact on who we are today, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. They may be gone from this Earth but they will live on in who we are and they will never be forgotten.

I believe that Farrah got what she wanted for her family, for them not to be chased around by the media, paparazzi, and for them to have the peace they needed to mourn her loss in private..I think that God has a master plan and these individuals he/she is pulling in is for God to get a different perspective on what is going on here on Earth, and to help God make decisions that he/she needs to make for the future of mankind.

One thing I believe is whenever we see such a huge plucking of famous people, something big is about to happen, so keep your eyes open.

I don’t think that Michael was any better than Farrah, nor visa versa, I just believe they did what we all do, try to make people happy and do our jobs. I do believe they were both great in their own way and I feel they both contributed to our lives in a positive way.

Michael had his problems, but nobody really knows if he did things he shouldn’t have, but haven’t we all? I don’t think it is right for people to point fingers and accuse people of things if they don’t have the facts. I think perhaps Michael was accused of things that might not have happened. Maybe he was just a loving person who cared too much for people? He did come from a big family which means that he more than likely had to sleep in the same bed with several of his brothers at one time or another while he was growing up.

Farrah was beautiful, with her flowing hair and smile, and she cared enough about people that she promoted funding to treat cancer and did her best to teach everyone about cancer, up to the day she died. This was her last gift to mankind, the cancer video of her own, at the end of her life.

None of us know how long we will be here, but we would like to think we did something to make life easier on those we care about.

Some say that history repeats itself, kind of like weather cycles through time periods and therefore somewhat predictable, not.

If history repeats itself are you ready? Do you know what to do to prepare for upcoming probable events? Would you take the time to prepare or just let it happen and hope to be prepared for the event, whatever it may be?

What do you do? Who can you trust? Where do you turn? How will you survive? When will the event happen?

I put my faith in God. Like the strike on the coins, "In God We Trust". This is where my fate lies. If it is meant to be it will be, no matter what it is. I know that God will make a path for me regardless of what lies before me, and that he will take care of me. Just read Psalm 23 for proof.